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Next World Cup to have 12 groups of 4, with 32 teams advancing to the knock out stage

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They haven’t even hidden the fact it’s money orientated though, which is amusing.

At least they’ve finally done way with the proposals for that mental suggest of 16 groups of 3 teams, where a team can be out after a game.

Only known the 32-team format, and I thought it was great, albeit some games were lopsided or just boring I.e. Saudi Vs. Egypt or Algeria Vs. Slovenia, what is going to happen with an additional 16 teams?
 

Mikey_Fitzgerald said:

Summary of qualification[edit]​

ConfederationDirect slotsPlay-off slotsTeams startedTeams eliminatedTeams qualifiedQualifying start dateQualifying end date
Total45+310208+1+30+10+32023TBD
World Map FIFA2.svg
AFC8146+1[a]0+1012 October 2023October 2025
CAF915400TBDTBD
CONCACAF3+3232+300+3March 2024November 2025
CONMEBOL61100020232025
OFC111100TBDTBD
UEFA1605500March 2025TBD
Play-offs2—(6)0(0)TBDTBD
Click to expand...

One Oceanic team (New Zealand) will now qualify automatically

Good news for the other teams in the confederation as it actually gives them something to play for now

UEFA only gets 3 more than usual

Asia has seen the biggest benefit, going from 4 guaranteed to a possible 9
 
As far as European qualification, you need to whittle down 55 to 16

I'm guessing there'll be 8 groups of 6 and 1 group of 7?

9 group winners go through and then you have to work out how to assign the other 7 qualifiers

You'll have 9 runner ups, so maybe assign 5 slots to the best runner ups and then do a mini tournament with the 4 lowest 2nd place finishers in order to decide the final two slots?
 

It's good for the other confederations which is a good thing. It might lead to improvements of quality for them. Quality will be diluted but it's more football to watch
 
This is just going to make the whole competition worse. A watered-down joke featuring teams that have no business playing on a stage that big. It won't make the money FIFA imagine. It'll hurt their product. The people running the sport are blinded by their own greed.
 
The solution is to start watching only after the group stage. There might be the odd group game that catches the fancy, but the lack of jeopardy means they will basically be glorified training matches. Certainly, the days of embracing the entire month of football, watching every game, and absorbing the implications of Tunisia 0-1 Belgium are over for me. As somebody who likes to archive World Cup tournaments on blu-ray, I suspect I'll be depending on my local national TV channel to do a good daily highlights show (if they can be bothered with this amount of games), or restrict myself to the last 16 - 32 at a stretch. Basically, I'll become very selective from now on as the concept of an all-enveloping tournament makes little sense now the group stages are, effectively, a lucrative qualification tournament bolted on to the finals themselves.
 
They may have gone too far with this.

It's going to go on forever - 40 days apparently. Viewer fatigue will come into play. Then you have to consider player fatigue - those involved in the latter stages will likely experience burnout and won't be fit to play for their clubs until about a month after the next season starts.

Clear case of overkill for the pursuit of more money for me.
 

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